Column: Free Press political agenda revealed

As of this writing, around 15 candidates for local office have agreed to visit The Free Press and record interviews for the entire world to hear.

Here’s the deal: Every person running for local office (that has answered their phone) will sit down at a table and be asked to introduce themselves and answer a few questions. All candidates running for a particular office will be asked the same set of questions and be given the same amount of time to answer. No candidates will have access to the questions ahead of time. Each session will be displayed at Kinston.com for all to hear.

I say “everyone” that has answered their phone is participating because one candidate has been tougher to track down than Kenny Rogers’ plastic surgeon. Anyone who might potentially get his or her Underoos in a knot over the absence of a candidate’s interview needs to realize it’s up to the candidate to participate. If we try to contact a candidate via email and telephone and receive nothing in the form of a response, we don’t have the manpower to assign someone to camp out on their lawn.

I know, I know — phone calls and emails are so 2006! Texting is where it’s at, Daddy-O. Well, Machete don’t text, so I don’t see why we should have to either.

Some candidates are going to speak louder than others. I’ll be mixing the audio from these interviews on a laptop that’s older than Methuselah’s grandma, so only so much volume correction can be achieved.

If one candidate speaks loud enough to rattle the floorboards and the next can be drowned out by a butterfly, one is going to be easier to hear than the other. Any volume discrepancy is not a conspiracy on the part of The Free Press to give certain people an advantage. Rather, it’s just an example of how no two people, snowflakes or slices of crispy bacon are exactly alike.

When the interviews are completed, I’ll spend around eight or nine hours uploading them to a server that will allow us to post them on Kinston.com. We’ll be posting the interviews in alphabetical order, so if a disproportionate amount of candidates from your party are near the bottom of the postings you can take it up with whoever decided on the family names. Any parents hoping to raise a political wunderkind are encouraged to change their last name to something like “Aaberg” or “Abscess” immediately.

Anyone who has accused The Free Press of having a political agenda over the years is correct: We allow all sides to have a say. You could not find two people who are more polar opposite politically than conservative columnist Reece Gardner and liberal columnist Richard Clark. One thing they do have in common is we allow both of them (and numerous guest columnists from all political parties) to have their say in our pages. If you’re interested in submitting a column for publication and can string a decent sentence together, contact me at the address below and we’ll give you a shot as well.

Lastly, I’d like to address the crayon munchers who whine about not knowing anything about the candidates. Between these audio interviews and the stories that have been and will be in The Free Press, any ignorance to these candidates is voluntary. We’ve won awards for these interviews/podcasts in the past, and those who are really into politics seem to enjoy them.

Sadly, we’ll be lucky to crack 300 downloads per interview.

Call me crazy, but if I had a chance to listen to a commercial-free, politically neutral conversation with the people who will be making decisions that will affect my family, I’d forego “Dancing With The D-List Celebrities” for just one night listen to what these candidates had to say.

Anyone who can find bias in the way we’re doing this is welcome to come down to the office and chew on a brick.

Jon Dawson’s columns appear every Tuesday and Thursday in The Free Press. Contact Jon at 252-559-1092 or jon.dawson@kinston.com. Purchase Jon’s book “Making Gravy in Public” at jondawson.com.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.